No-go for Led Zeppelin in 2014?

No quarter: Robert Plant seemed open for a 2014 reunion, but John Paul Jones will spend next year working on an opera.

Rock band Led Zeppelin, from left, keyboardist/bassist John Paul Jones, singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, stand as the Star Spangled Banner is played during the Kennedy Center Honors Gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012. While Led Zeppelin is being honored as a band, surviving members Jones, Page, and Plant, each received the Kennedy Center Honors. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
— AP

Rock band Led Zeppelin, from left, keyboardist/bassist John Paul Jones, singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, stand as the Star Spangled Banner is played during the Kennedy Center Honors Gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012. While Led Zeppelin is being honored as a band, surviving members Jones, Page, and Plant, each received the Kennedy Center Honors. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
/ AP

The Led Zeppelin reunion saga continues, with yet another curve ball from one of the most legendary rock bands ever.

Earlier this year, you may recall, former Zep singer Robert Plant announced: "I've got nothing to do in 2014."

That disclosure that had many fans eagerly anticipating the band would finally get back together for its first tour in more than three decades, especially since Plant had been the stumbling block in previous years.

Guess again.

Now comes word that bassist John Paul Jones won't be available next year -- because he's working on an opera.

"2014 is full of opera for me at the moment," Jones told Red Carpet News in London, where he was attending a recent after-party for the English National Opera's production of Philip Glass' "The Perfect American."

"It (opera) is unlike anything else," Jones said. "It's the emotion, the passion, and I'm writing an opera myself, so I have to say that."

Jones' opera is based on a 105-year-old story by Swedish writer August Strindberg, "Spöksonaten (The Ghost Sonata)."

More than Plant or Zep guitarist Jimmy Page, Jones has worked with an unusually diverse array of musicians in his post-Zeppelin career. His collaborators have ranged from Dave Grohl and R.E.M. to former San Diego avant vocal wizard Diamanda Galas and former North County trio Nickel Creek.

Jones, Plant and drummer Jason Bonham (the son of the band's deceased drummer, John Bonham) appeared eager to tour and record after their lone 2007 London Led Zeppelin reunion concert with Plant in 2007. But Plant pointedly vetoed any further reunions, saying he didn't want to revisit the past and citing his work commitments with Alison Krauss and his own group, The Band of Joy. So Plant's sudden announcement that next year was wide open for him came as tantalizing news to fans.

Until, that is, Jones decided that his 2014 will be devoted to opera, not rocking out with Zep.

Hmm. Perhaps Jones is still peeved that Plant and Page reunited without him in 1994 for their so-called "Unledded" "No Quarter" album and tour?